Executive Director of FSC UK, Charles Thwaites MBE, presented the award on Tuesday 19th February 2013 to Mike Fadden, Smurfit Kappa Regional Director East who received it on behalf of Smurfit Kappa UK. Also present were Melvyn Mabbutt, Managing Director of Smurfit Kappa Diss and David Upton, General Manager of Smurfit Kappa’s Peterborough site.

FSC Friday is a celebration of the world’s forests and helps to raise awareness of the importance of managing these forests responsibly, and the role that FSC plays in this.

The FSC UK awards are presented to organisations that have worked, through a particular project or activity, to promote responsible forestry within the UK. Smurfit Kappa was chosen to receive the FSC UK award in recognition of the educational and awareness raising activities it undertook on FSC Friday 2012 and has been commended for its success in reaching out to local communities and helping to spread the FSC message with imagination and enthusiasm. A number of Smurfit Kappa sites took part in celebrating FSC Friday, many working with local schools and communities to educate the children on the importance of responsible forestry. Internal communications and activities were also organised in order to spread the message to the staff. The Eastern region was commended particularly for the activities that took place across sites at Diss, March and Peterborough.

Charles Thwaites commented: In the UK FSC makes no more than half-a-dozen of these outstanding contribution awards a year. They are not designed so much for the many companies who commit themselves, day after day, to purchase FSC-approved materials and thus support our drive to increase the area of responsibly managed forests across the globe. We are of course indebted to all these companies, but Smurfit Kappa have gone further still with their very successful FSC Friday campaign across three sites in the Eastern Region. We are particularly grateful for the company’s outreach to young people – the consumers of the future – and for the civic involvement and associated publicity.

I completely endorse the fact that Smurfitt Kappa are in very exclusive company. Right up there with the Olympic Village and the Royal Mail for their FSC-certified stamps. Because without their enthusiasm, and others like them, in buying FSC-approved materials, telling their customers of the value of this and then doing something special on top, our global cause would be very much less effective.

Melvyn Mabbutt explained: Involving the local school children with FSC Friday not only promoted the importance of sustainable forestry but also encouraged a great community spirit. The idea of planting trees in recognition of the day was to encourage a longstanding relationship with the community with the children returning to site to see how the plants are growing.